Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ironically

The day after a guy in California is convicted for stopping short and injuring 2 cyclists, a guy in New Berlin clips my hand and then stops short in front of me while swerving toward me and the side of the road. Thankfully I wasn't going 30mph down a hill and there was a ditch for me to ride into. I'm not saying this incident is comparable to the California incident, other than this guy is every bit the menace Dr. Thompson was, I just got lucky. Hopefully there will be consequenses to dissuade him from using his car to force others off the road again.

Awesome advocacy Jeff! Now don't get yourself killed just to prove a point.

Two questions... your "harrassment" videos all seem to be on roads with no shoulder and little room for more than two-way auto traffic for your commute. Are there no alternative routes with a wider birth to cycle?

I agree you are entitled to your right of way... but is there any responsibility on the rider to select roads designed wide enough to support human powered traffic?

Wingnut,I get those questions a lot, even from other serious cyclists.

I'm more of a rural or suburban rider than a city rider. Most roads in rural or suburban areas are two lane shoulderless roads. Also, I stop for stop signs and lights so I try to choose routes with few of either so I don't have to stop every block or two.

Given those criteria, many of the roads I ride are of the type you describe, but also have very low traffic counts. As a result most of my close calls aren't due to traffic backing up behind me due to my poor road choice, but impatient drivers who couldn't wait literally 5 seconds to pass safely.

All the roads I ride on are "designed to support human powered traffic" if everyone obeys the traffic laws. In every one of my videos, the drivers are not obeying the law, and I am.

I too have camera's but have never been lucky enough to have them running when something like that happens. Not lucky that it hasn't happened, just unlucky in that I didn't have the camera running when it did. You've got great video collaboration for your side of the story. I hope this guy gets to be a poster child of what happens when you use a car as a weapon against cyclists.